Bingo!
1.5.2 links with -lieee while 2.0 doesn't. Removing -lieee from the
1.5.2 link line makes is raise OverflowError too. Adding it to the
2.0 link line makes it return 0.0 for exp(-1000) and inf for
exp(1000).
Next question: what changed in the configure script, and why?
--Guido van Rossum (home page: http://www.python.org/~guido/)